I have found that relationship tools work, they are helpful and improve my relationships. Like a good shovel it just works, you might get tired of digging ditches and want to quit, but the shovel still works regardless. I say this because in one of my relationships I had the tools to understand our dynamic and I was unwilling to put up with the dysfunction. Maybe if I did whatever she asked our relationship would have improved. For me first and foremost I need to be treated with kindness and respect, if this doesn’t happen I will leave the relationship. So the tools work, even if the relationship does not. This is not a save the relationship at all costs course. Or said another way I must first be kind and loving to myself, I must have something before I can give it to another.
Here is a podcast I recorded in the second year of my second marriage: Divorce – How I Survived, Thrived, and Remarried.
No married couples gave me a manual or tools before I got married, they essentially let us get onboard a ship and head out into the pacific with no sailing instructions and no life preservers nor life boats. I ship-wrecked twice and it was really painful and difficult, so below I share what I learned and hopefully help you relate and take care of the ship you and your partner get into.
